


Not Going Mad [Gone]

by Amemait



Category: Tin Man, due South
Genre: GFY, M/M, bodysnatching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 11:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amemait/pseuds/Amemait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zero did not go mad.<br/>He did, however, go...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Going Mad [Gone]

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Tin Man, post CotW due South, rated about PG-ish. If you squint, you might see Fraser/RayK. You will see RayK/Stella, and one-sided Zero/Stella

They say that men have gone mad, trapped in that suit. Locked in total solitary, able to see the world but not touch, not taste, not feel, and never interact.  
  
Zero did not go mad.  
  
Near every person in the O.Z. had a relative of some kind in the Other Side. Sometimes, if the blood was strong (if the pain was great, if the chance was there) it was possible for a person to lose himself to his cousin. It was rare, and relied upon old magic, sunk into the ground and imbued in the air. It was almost always accidental.  
  
But Zero knew that he would not be let out.  
  
He’d dreamt his cousin. Hated the name with him, shared his expressions. The strange quirking of lips, yes, that showed joy or amusement, and every now and then Zero had caught himself copying his cousin.  
  
A rush of possessiveness flooded him whenever he saw a blonde woman with hair to her shoulders – both rare in the O.Z., where fashion demanded either short or long with no room for in-between, and darker colours were less likely to attract negative attention, but that was okay – and a tiny part of him would cry out for his cousin’s wife.  
  
Former wife, it soon seemed, as the dreams turned sadder, as his cousin stared to answer to another name, as a new face appeared most often. Dark and calm and with eyes of blue, and a hat that this new man wore like a security blanket.  
  
There was loss in Zero’s heart too as his first wife (blonde hair to her shoulders) left him. But she was known and she was recognised, and no man dared take her as his own. She ran from Zero, but crawled back to him eventually. She died by her own hand, but still anybody proven to have been ‘friendly’ with her was punished for daring.  
  
His second was quiet and dutiful and obedient and he hated her for it; she was a career-match, and loved him more than anything, but still he hated her. She was a necessity, nothing more, and when he closed his eyes he would dream of his cousin’s friend.  
  
His cousin had chosen the same paths he had, but had not killed anybody, had not tortured anybody, had not needed to prove himself to a witch-chosen-queen, almost drunk on her own power. In his cousin’s mind he found solace.  
  
His cousin gave him dancing and joy and occasional ‘jitters’. He gave his cousin nightmares, but was unrepentant.  
  
And now…  
  
He could not stay in this infernal contraption. He could not sleep, and thus find escape in dreams. He could only…  
  
And there was the magic, all around him, and who would have known that this simple forest held so much power, could have possibly been so full of magic and life?  
  
He was not coming out, he knew.  
  
It was not Slipping. A Slip did not imply a choice. It also implied the physical, which this was not.  
  
This was… a departure. No long good-byes (no good-byes at all), no moment where he might change his mind.  
  
Zero closed his eyes, searching for the break-  
  
There. It was cold, it was white, it held so much peril, but it was where he wanted to be, and the cold was muffled now, driven away by warmth…


End file.
